Wasn’t feeling overly motivated, but tried to get out and skate some before the weather would turn to snow. Went to the side of the school. Did some slappies. Struggled with flip tricks. Like really struggled. The amount of effort I had to put into a halfcab flip was maddening. Almost got a treflip, but I didn’t.

(setup 3/10 8.25 null flaherty, forged titanium indy 144 with royal bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, emerica og-1 black size 12 footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 6/10)

Left from the office with rain threatening and took the parking lot known as 287 to Broomfield. The park was popping. My legs were toast. I quickly joined a game of treflip with Kevin and Sean. I beat Sean, but Kevin did all 4 treflip variations before I had landed mine. Pretty amazing. Also marks one of the rare times I did a treflip priot to a kickflip. Mainly because I had gone 0-3 on kickflips before that. Sean and Kevin killed the black ledge. Kevin doing his first fakie back tail since hurting his knee. Sean nollie back nosegrind was so casual. Will did some grinds into the bank. I had some good crooks, noseslides to fakie the bank to ledge, couldn’t halfcab noseslide though and had very little pop into front 50s. Those dudes were chilling and I just wanted to do another slappy crook on the parking block, but I lined it out with a kickflip flyout. Then it turned into treflip flyout madness in which I never quite got one. The fall was funny enough though.

(setup 4/10 8.25 null flaherty, forged titanium indy 144 with royal bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, new balance numeric 306 blue size 12 with footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 5/10)

Dog park after work. I waited a little too long to write this and don’t remember much. Rob had some solid back 50s and manuals, back 50 back 180. I had a second try nose manual. Kevin was ripping. Back tail the bench, Gish the bench, nollie and switch flips so easily, crooks, nollie 5-0s. At the end Kevin and I did some ride on grinds off the grate. The nollie bonk off the corner of the top circle was scary and my fav. The switch grinds were fun too.

(setup 4/10 8.25 null flaherty, forged titanium indy 144 with royal bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, last resort grey cm002 size 12 (way too big) with footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 6/10)

On a really nice day Kevin and I chilled at 303 for a bit then rolled into campus. I got some titanium 144s to hopefully finally have a perfect setup (no chance whatsoever). First spot was the little flower pot triangle ledge. I had tried a line of kickflip up the curb then curve around and crooks, but the kickflip wasn’t happening. Then we went to the downhill ledge. I took a while just to be able to noseslide it from the top of the “hill”. We got to the point where we did tricks into the “hill” and then ledge tricks. Kevin halfcab flip and then crooks was sick. He also tried switch flip then switch front nose, but the speed was too much. We wanted to get a student to walk up halfway so he could have the excuse of having to slow down around a student, but we didn’t. Would have been funny. I took a while to get varial flop in and halfcab flip. But once I calibrated the huge floppy shoes and new smallerish setup I had a few in a row that felt very good. Then to the slope to steps spot. I took too long to do front tail shove then front shove. Kevin took less long to do the blunt then kickflip. Last spot was the tiny bank that I didn’t really skate. Kevin did nollie and switch flip easily. Fun session.

(setup 6/10 8.25 null flaherty, forged titanium indy 144 with royal bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, last resort grey cm002 size 12 (way too big) with footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 5/10)

On a very warm Saturday Rob, Dave, Paul and I rolled up to Evergreen for a birthday tradition. We met up with Salty, Bratcher, Miller and Jake (still unable to skate). Great crew. We filmed almost nothing which was kind of nice. Bratcher had a migraine and didn’t really skate. Salty had some cool grind reverts on the qp and went for some fast boardslides on the ledge. Paul was the youngest and it showed popping onto the ledges with ease. Front 50 down the slight hubba looked fun, back 5-0s, front nosegrind the fence ledge, windshield wiper on the qp. Rob manuals, crails, front board pop out, back 50s, front slash the qp. I was skating decent and starting a line with kickflip over the hip but totally broke my board. Doh. Luckily I had a used one in the car that was somehow actually in better shape. I don’t know if I quite got back into the groove after that. But I would get a bad b/s flip over the hip, first t fakie bigspin over it. I had a bunch of crooks, noseslides on the fence ledge, a few slow front 50s. One thing I actually liked the most was kickflip up the curb then noseslide the out ledge. Had some fun 180 nose manuals from the wedge to the hip deck. I ended trying slow treflips and eventually got a very sorry excuse of a treflip. Dave lasted the longest of course and was shredding. Lots of kickflips over the f/s hip, b/s flips over it, pivot the steep qp, bump to nose manual the wedge to hip deck, front 50s the bump to ledge, showed up Paul with a layback grind to tail, back 3 over the hip, ended on a varial flip that took a bit. Fun session, great crew, fun park, great weather, good margs after.

(setup 5/10 8.25 null keyhole, forged hollow indy 149 with royal bushings, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, last resort grey cm002 size 12 (way too big) with footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

I took a half day and on a warm afternoon picked up Bratcher and rolled to Windsor park. We met Hayden and Will and we basically had the park to ourselves until the end save for an e-motorbike. Ended up being a pretty fun session. Bratcher lots of tricks on the curb height ledge, ollied up the euro, front 50 the taller ledge. Hayden is so fun to watch. Such casual manuals, back tails, crooks, nosegrinds. Filmed an amazing line of him 50’ing the double set curb, crooks off the bank to ledge then a super lofty b/s ollie the qp hip. Will skated the tall ledge with ease. Front smith on the bank to ledge was amazing. First try pop shove up the euro. I had a couple of lines I liked, but I struggled in my oversized shoes. Warm up line above was about as good as I did all day. Crooks, noseslide to fakie, halfcab noseslide. Later on I would get a crooks on the lower ledge, flatground heelflip, front 180 the euro. Other than those nothing really stands out as noteworthy from me. Fun session, good crew.

(setup 3/10 8.25 null keyhole, cast hollow 144 mindys, 52mm spitfire f4 99a orange/black swirl classic, last resort grey cm002 size 12 (way too big) with footprint gamechanger insoles)
(pain level 4/10)

Stopped by dog park after work on a nice evening. My legs felt like garbage. I think the only thing I did were some slappy crooks. Paul and Ted did slappy crook shoves. I tried to shove too, got close, but did not land it. Will had some sick back smiths on the green box. Dave showed and casually killed as he does. I left early. I had probably done more than I said, but I was pretty down about my skating.

(setup 4/10 null keyhole 2 8.3, jessup ultragrip, indy forged hollow knox 149 royal bushings, 51mm spitfire f4 99a classic, last resort cm002 size 12 grey half 574 insoles and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 8/10)

Had a garbage day of work. Dave hit me saying he was going to Valmont on a fine day. I beat him there. Valmont was a wash of toddlers so I started at dog park. Mostly chatted for a bit, then did some warm ups. Didn’t get far into anything. Paul showed. Dave found a cool new line grinding the end of the barrier. We tried to line out to it, but I never really landed anything. Dave had a cool front slash up the end of the barrier. Paul had accidentally worn his chill shoes (Janoski’s) and basically hated them and didn’t skate much. Somehow Valmont cleared out so we went over there. I spent a while getting kickflips on the hip with the barrier. Got two to make it true. Had only done it once before. Dave did the best over-50-make in history on a b/s flip over the hip. He had some cool lines. Then we watched Satellite Jack shred it and him and Dave learned halfcab plants (I have no idea what to call them). I did a few bad noseslides then got a leg cramp. Filmed Dave get a cool line of a gnarly lipslide then bluntslide bonus on the weird sharp qp/lump.

(setup 7/10 null keyhole 2 8.3, jessup ultragrip, indy forged hollow knox 149 royal bushings, 51mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 440v2 wide navy size 12 half insoles)
(pain level 7/10)

Feeling very sore from the day before I went to dog park to meet Bratcher and Gordon. Was pleasantly surprised to see most of 98% dudes there. I didn’t skate very hard as I was so sore. Did a few basics, liked how my setup felt on halfcab noseslides, crooks and ollies. Didn’t really do much for flippers. Wore vulcs for less pain, didn’t really help or hurt I guess. Then I went to the out ledge spot and all I did was dork around on a mini bank with curbs on the sides. Did a switch nose jib shove.

(setup 7/10 null keyhole 2 8.3, jessup ultragrip, indy forged hollow knox 149 royal bushings, 51mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 306 navy size 12 half insole and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 6/10)

After the snow had cleared and sun came out I went to skate. I felt like going to a street spot and ended up at Casey for some reason. I started out in the back on the rock area which was less appealing than I remembered. For a while I tried to manual the rock lowest rock, but couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ollie the whole thing either. So I settled for a rock ‘n roll which was dumber and harder than I wanted too. I did have a few flippers in between tries at least which felt pretty good.

Then I went to the stage area. I had ollied it and 180’d it and wanted to do more. Decided on front shove and made myself ollie up before each try. The ollies up were way harder. Like so hard for a while and I was getting really frustrated. But then they started to work and I was committing to front shoves. But those turned into a battle too. I was so tired from jumping up and down. But when I got it it felt great.

Then I went down below to the weird manny pad / ledge thing and didn’t really find much to do other than a couple backside ledge tricks. Crooks felt really good. Not shown is the weird approach having to swerve around a rail. Fun day, skated hard.

(setup 7/10 null keyhole 2 8.3, jessup ultragrip, indy forged hollow knox 149 royal bushings, 51mm spitfire f4 99a classic, new balance numeric 440v2 wide navy size 12 half insole and currex runpro insoles)
(pain level 4/10)